Surface cost-reduction levers before headcount cuts become the default answer

You are helping me build a cost-reduction analysis for one specific expense line before it goes to my leadership team, and I want headcount reduction to be the last option considered, not the first one that gets written down because it's the easiest to model.

EXPENSE LINE
Third-party SaaS tooling across the growth and support teams

CURRENT ANNUAL SPEND
$412,000/year across 34 active vendor contracts

TARGET REDUCTION
18% reduction ($74,000/year) by Q1

WHAT WE'VE ALREADY TRIED
Already consolidated two overlapping analytics tools last year; annual renewal negotiations already happen every renewal cycle

CONSTRAINTS I CANNOT VIOLATE
Cannot touch the tools the support team uses for SLA-tracking; no new multi-year lock-in contracts

HOW TO STRUCTURE THE AUDIT
First, break the expense line into its actual cost drivers rather than treating it as one number — ask me for the components you need if I haven't given them, since a vendor contract, a usage pattern, and a headcount cost inside the same line item respond to completely different levers. For each driver, generate savings options across four categories in this order: renegotiate or consolidate (same output, lower unit price), reduce usage or scope (same price, less consumed), substitute (a cheaper way to get the same outcome), and eliminate (stop doing it entirely) — only after exhausting those four should headcount appear as a fifth category, and it must appear explicitly labeled as last-resort with a one-line reason it's being included at all. For every option, state whether the saving is one-time or recurring, since a leadership team conflating a one-time vendor credit with a permanent run-rate reduction is the single most common way a cost-cutting plan quietly fails to hold in month four. Flag any option that conflicts with something I've already tried or a constraint I gave you, rather than silently including it. Do not invent a specific vendor name, contract term, or negotiated discount percentage — where you'd need a real number to make an option concrete, mark it as an input I need to supply.

WHAT NOT TO DO
Do not default to "reduce headcount by X%" as a shortcut when a real analysis of the other four categories hasn't been done — that's the exact failure mode this prompt exists to prevent. Do not present a savings estimate as precise when it depends on a negotiation outcome you can't know.

OUTPUT FORMAT
A table with columns: Lever, Category, Estimated Annual Impact (one-time vs recurring), What Has To Be True For This To Work, Risk. End with a one-paragraph recommended sequence — which levers to pull first based on speed to impact versus effort — and a closing line noting this is a structuring aid for your own review, not a substitute for sign-off from whoever owns the budget.